Rowan did not sleep a wink that night, not that she slept much usually. Her senses were on hyper alert, her mind more confused than fearful. The Duke had not made any sense.
He keeps a wolf as pet, Nyphilles as servants, a whole Keep of walking furniture and you expect him to make sense?Rowan shook her head, chastising her inner voice. Not that the historical records were of any help in explaining the last of the Darkwoods.
As rare as a Nyphillie’s one out of thousand chance of birth, a Magus’s one out of a billion made them a myth. Out of these, only the lineage of Darkwoods was of the original pure-blooded Magus.
Her brother’s birth as a Magus was a strange occurrence that had not happen since the Purge, six centuries ago. It was also during the Purge that almost all records of the Maguses were engulfed in flames, said to set by the revolting Nyphilles servants of the time and marked the start of the mass massacre of Nyphilles kind.
She dropped her head to one side, considering. Why would the Duke keep the murderers of his family by his side still?
Alfredo mirrored her demeanour, cocked its head and glared at her. The wolf had returned soon after the Duke left, slapped its tail against one of the pillar to her bed before sinking near its foot with a satisfied growl. It did not sleep either and instead watched her in its master’s stead.
It had been exhausting enough to ponder on the Duke’s eccentric behaviours, it was just as taxing to have a predator stalk her every movements.
She got up on her feet, wobbled a little at the sudden attack of light headedness.
Lack of fresh life magick was finally catching up with her. The little amount left in the bottles of blood they had packed was nowhere near enough to keep her senses awake. She needed fresh sacrifice—of whose whereabouts she still has no clue of.
She slipped on her gloves and crouched to meet the wolf’s eyes. She had considered taking what she needed from the creature but though the Duke had been slow to catch her, she doubt he would miss it again if she was to act on his beloved pet.
“You love your master don’t you?”
Her question captured the creature’s undivided attention. Even though it masked it with an immediate snort, she could see its answer in the slight twitch of its ears. The Duke was right, it was more dog than wolf.
“What do you say if we sign truce for the time being?” she pressed. “I am sure you can see how much your master wants us to get along.”
Alfredo threw its head back and huffed. As it leapt off the windows, its tail slapped across her extended hand, signalling the end of their discussion.
At least I tried, she sighed just as two knocks sounded on the door.
Walter stood in the doorway, head dipped in a bow with a hand over his heart. His ever crisp suit of black and neatly slicked hair made her suddenly conscious of the state of disarrange she was in. If he noticed, he didn’t let on. “His Grace had requested your presence, my lady.”
Ba dump.
It was normal for the Duke to invite her to dinner but he had never requested anything of her—especially not at this hour of the day. It was barely daybreak. Rowan found herself nodding despite the turbulence inside. “A minute if you will.”
“I shall be waiting in the hallway.” Walter bowed and closed the door behind her.
She could feel his presence lingering as if she could see pass the doors. Had the butler’s presence always been so ominous? No, no. Don’t think too much. Maybe the Duke just wanted a change of pace. But even as she thought about it, a large part of her mind doubted it.
With care, she browsed through the gowns and dresses that filled the wardrobe. They were in varied shades of red, black and purple—all of which complemented her original Nyphillie colours better than it did Anastasia’s Fulgel complexion.
For days she had stared at the pile of silk and laces, wondering if the Duke had knew she would be sent instead of the King’s prized daughter. Her instincts had proven to be truthful. Now the wardrobe of luxuries seemed a prelude to her impending doom.
She threw on a simple dress of red silk that hugged her curves, stopping right at her ankle. Its fabric seemed the easiest to tear off if she needed to free her legs for escape. The only accessories she had don were the slim daggers strapped close to her thighs. Not that it would be of much help against a Magus with an army of Nyphilles as servants. But the feeling of the leather she had relied on for a whole century against her skin felt comforting.
Inhaling deeply, she ran a hand through her silvery white wig and pulled on the hinges of the doors where Walter awaited without looking at her.
“Well then, this way please.”
Rowan trailed a few steps behind Walter in hope that his senses had dulled over the years to hear the hammering of her heart. She had not felt fear in centuries, not when she infiltrated heavily guarded castles, not even when she faced the murderer of her brother on daily basis.
But Cornelius Darkwoods. Something about the last Magus stirred emotions she had thought long dead in her. Fear…and curiosity.
Why would he want a Fulgel princess when he has a household of Nyphilles? Why would the Duke of Noxsidus keep Nyphilles with him in the first place? The descendants of Nyphilles who killed his whole family thousands of years ago? Without any hint of disguise, working at normal Fulgels chores even. What could he possibly be thinking?
For someone who carried her family’s death on her shoulders, she could not fathom the thought of being as powerful as he was and yet not raging a war of blood against his enemies. If it was her…what would she do?
“The master awaits.”
By the time she returned to her senses, Walter had stopped in front of a gate of obsidian black she had yet to come across. It loomed thrice her height, dark woods intertwined with one another from either sides of the walls in an unnatural way. It was as if a third force had forced the two to twist and meet to form the gate, not grow into it on their own.
She was sure she had yet to visit this part of the Keep but something about the gates tugged at her mind. As if she had been close to it. It felt…no, smelled, strangely familiar.
Walter stepped to the side and bowed, his lips sealed. There was no way she could ever ask anything out of him. Short as her stay may be, she had come to know the butler as one of few words.
She was in this on her own.
With her shoulders drawn back, she inhaled and stepped through the threshold—and stopped short. Her hands lingered above the hilt of her hidden daggers reflectively.
Roses.
Rows upon rows of red flooded the small space around her. Each stalk seemed stacked upon another as the bushes of emerald green scaled the expanse of the enclosed space. In the heart of it all, a domed gazebo of ancient wood stood erected. Vines that dangled with buds of roses twined around its dark limbs.
Never had she seen roses as many or with a deeper blush as the ones before her now.
Wooed by a strange spell, her feet had carried her to the nearest bush before she could stop herself. She paused and gingerly picked a stalk between her gloved fingers.
How long had it been since she last walked among them? She had walked straight into a rose garden in full bloom without detecting their scent. Ever since she stepped through the borders of Noxsidus, her senses had repeatedly failed her. So near, yet she still could not read the life magick that pulsed through the roses. Was it all a part of Walter’s magick?
She turned around and found the butler long gone. Sighing, she turned the stalk in her hand and immediately noticed the strangeness of the stalk. Her brows creased as her gaze travelled the length of it. “They are thorn…less?”
“Do you prefer them with thorns?”
Rowan whipped around and came face to face with the Duke. His eyes were a startling clear blue today, almost silver. The odd coloured rings in them clearer than ever.
Taken by surprise, she did not manage to evade when he reached over. His fingers brushed against her bared shoulders and made her skin tingle. Cradling a stalk in his hand, he studied it with narrowed eyes that mirrored hers.
“If my lady like them with thorns, I would have them all remade.”
Rowan glanced at the stranger in front of her. Who was he? She found no hesitation, no mockery in the Duke’s eyes. He was sincerely asking for her preference. But why would he?
“My lady…?”
“Why are you doing this?” the words rolled off her tongue before she could stop them.
Long before he asked for the princess’s hands, Rowan had heard of how the secluded Duke had been frequenting Lockhart Castle since Anastasia’s coming of age ceremony. Being Anastasia’s shadow, she had not seen him herself but she had most certainly felt a lingering line of sight on her more than once.
If he had indeed watched the princess, he could not possibly be mistaken.
“They reminded me of you,” the Duke replied, once again answering without answering her question. His voice so gentle, she felt unease churning in each of the goose bump that rose over her arms. “Each represents a day I spent longing for you since we first met.” He reached out for her but stopped when she flinched involuntarily. His fingers barely brushed the mark of rose on her skin. “Do you not like this gift?”
Roses reminded him of her? The irony of it made her throat clamped inwards, rendering her breathless. She was on the brink of losing it. The Duke’s dark humour was incomprehensible. But if he would play dumb with her, she was glad to oblige.
“How did you grow them…without thorns?” she inhaled deeply and asked instead, her eyes fixed on the bare stalk. Its emerald shade tugged at her mind. She was not familiar with the shades of fresh roses or any other plants for that matter, but she had not seen any with a deeper red or clearer green than those in the garden. Confusion aside, she was truly intrigued.
Rowan blamed the new environment and the peculiarity of the Duke for the distracted state of her mind. She was a second too late to react when Cornelius took her hand in his and single-handedly slipped off her glove.
“What are you doing—!” she panicked as he slipped the rose into her bare hand. Her glove, hidden behind his back as a child would tease another.
It would arouse too much suspicion if she was to throw it away but if she does not, it would all be over in mere seconds. It was so for trees taller than the gates she passed, a rose this size would not last. It would wither, shrink and fade to dust like any of the plants she had touched before.
Her eyes widened in horror, heart convulsed with fear as she waited for it all to come to the light. But as time passed, the rose’s brilliance remained. Rowan gasped, dropped the stalk as her hands instinctively flew to her mouth.
“Why…?”
The Duke’s smile stretched wider.
“Why isn’t the rose withering?” the Duke chuckled a throaty laugh. With a nonchalance smile that erased any trace of what passed between them, he picked up the fallen rose and placed it back within the bushes. It merged with the rest perfectly, as if it had never been plucked.
“Obviously, they were not one with life magick in them in the first place. Have you seen the woods on your way here? Those are what made them. Took a longer time than I thought to carve…Would you forgive me for my preoccupation with them these past weeks, my lady?”
He brought her bare hand to his face and held her in place. Despite her struggle, she was no match for the Duke with an amused smile. The instant his life magick began to fill her palm, she knew she had lost the bet.
His heartbeat slowed to match hers, a steady, intoxicating stream of magick filled her blood. She had never tasted life magick stronger or sweeter than this—not even as she drained the last hint of it from her enemies.
She knew she should run, fight her way out at the very least. But her head spun so badly with the feeling of his powers merging with hers, a surge of crashing waves that flooded her senses. She could barely stand on her own two feet.
“If I knew you would love this more than the roses, I would have done it sooner. Save all the time I had to spend without you.” The Duke’s hearty laughter jerked her back to reality.
Rowan retrieved her hand. Heart in her throat as she slid the daggers out of their hidden sheaths. She readied herself for battle but he only stood his ground and watched her with head tilted to one side, unaffected. His eyes flashed silver and a nearby bush pried the daggers from her hands, easily a toy from a toddler.
She knew she was powerless against the cage he had prepared, but the warrior in her refused to back down. “If you want me dead, battle with me. What kind of man hides behind enchantments against a wench?”
He had her hands wrapped in his in split seconds. “A man who doesn’t want his lady hurt.”
He leaned in, his face only inches away from hers. She pushed and thrashed against his chest but like the wood he worked with, the Duke was too stubborn a bloke. “The blade does not suit you, my love.”
Rowan stilled then. Her eyes widened with horror. They were wrong, she thought instantly. The Duke wasn’t strange, he was mad.
“I do not mind if you were to keep up the pretence. Though I admit, I’d much prefer that you don’t.” His breath sent a wave of tingles down the back of her neck. She tried wriggling out of his grasp again, this time he released her with a deep chuckle. In a softer voice, he added, “You are safe with me here, Rowan Lockhart.”
He knew. She gave her wrist a final yank and released herself from him.
“Since when have you known?”
“Since the very beginning.” The smile on his face never fade even as he lifted her other hand to his lips. “I shall see you on the morrow.”
As abrupt as he had appeared, Cornelius Darkwoods took one look at her, turned and disappeared through the gates. She watched him leave. It was only a long moment later that she realized he had took both her gloves with him.
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